In the first period, Washington Capitals forward Joel Wardhad an Esa Tikkanen-esque miss on a yawning net. After Alex Ovechkin hit Nicklas Backstrom with a beautiful cross-ice pass on a Caps power play, Backstrom fed a wide-open Ward, looking for a tic-tac-toe goal. Ward, seeing that he had to roof the puck over an out-stretched Henrik Lundqvist pad, carefully gathered in the puck on the blade of his stick and shot. Then he whiffed.